Members of the Financial Services Tribunal

Chair

Mr. Ian McSweeney became a member of the Tribunal in 2015 and was appointed Tribunal Chair on September 13, 2017. Ian is a retired partner of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP. At Osler, he chaired the firm’s Pension and Employee Benefits Department for many years and practised exclusively in that area for most of his 35 plus year legal career. Ian is a former member of Osler’s Executive Committee and a former Chair of the firm’s Legal Professionals Committee. He is the past Editor of Pension Benefits Law in Ontario (Carswell) and a former Vice-Chair of the Pension Commission of Ontario’s (later FSCO now FSRA) Legal Advisory Committee. Ian is also a former (founding) member of the executive of the Canadian Bar Association (Ontario) Pension and Benefits Section and former Chair and founding member of the International Pension & Employee Benefits Lawyers Association (IPEBLA). In 2016 Ian received the Ontario Bar Association Award of Excellence in Pensions and Benefits Law. Most recently, Ian served as Chair of the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) prior to FSCO's transition into the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA) on June 8, 2019. Ian is currently a member of the Headwaters Healthcare Centre Governance Committee, serves as Vice-Chair of the Orangeville Police Services Board and Vice-Chair of the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards Zone 5 executive. Ian is also member of the Dufferin Child and Family Services (DCAFS) Board of Directors and Executive Committee. He has an honours business degree from Ivey (HBA, 1975) and obtained his law degree from The University of Western Ontario (LLB, 1979).

Vice-Chair

Ms. Bethune Whistonwas appointed a member of the Tribunal on December 17, 2013 and appointed Vice-Chair on April 11, 2018. Ms. Whiston is a retired Partner of the Ontario Retirement Solutions, and Regulatory, Governance and Compliance Practices of LifeWorks/TELUS Health. For over 30 years she consulted, spoke and wrote internationally on pension & benefit plan issues. Ms. Whiston co-managed both the Toronto Regulatory Practice, a large multi-specialty team of people working on over 180 pension plan wind-ups and restructurings in Canada and the Toronto legal consulting team.

Bethune was a faculty member of the Osgoode Certificate in Pension Law for many years, and held leadership positions on a number of committees and councils in the industry. Bethune was a regular participant on Industry Working Groups set up by the Canadian Association of Pension Supervisory Authorities and co-ordinated publication of many editions of the Morneau Shepell Handbook of Canadian Pension and Benefit Plans. Ms. Whiston holds a B.A. from Western University (1983) and a J.D. from the University of Toronto (1986).

Mr. Paul Farley was reappointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on February 5, 2016. He has practiced law for forty-two years and, in April of 2016, retired as the Director of Investigations and Prosecutions at the Chartered Professional Accountants of Ontario, a self-regulating professional organization with over 90,000 members. Mr. Farley has more than thirty-five years of experience in administrative law and appears often before administrative tribunals and at all levels of the courts in Ontario on the prosecution of regulatory offences. He served as a Chair of the Advisory Board for the Financial Services Commission for 11 years.

Mr. Farley was advisor to the Board of the Alliance for Excellence in Investigative and Forensic Accounting from 2002 – 2004. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston, Ontario for six years and, since May of 2021, serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Georgian Bay General Hospital. Mr. Farley continues his career in the law as a sole practitioner.

Members

Mr. Anthony Fredericks has over 40 years of insurance experience, is a fellow of the Insurance Institute of Canada and a Canadian Risk Manager. Mr. Fredericks is the CEO for several companies, including A.M. Fredericks Underwriting Management Ltd., Canrisc Insurance Consulting and AMF Credit Corp.

A.M. Fredericks Underwriting Management Ltd. operates as a Managing General Underwriter, providing commercial insurance policies on behalf of domestic and foreign insurers. February 2018 marked the company’s 25th year in business. Canrisc Insurance Consulting Ltd. conducts borrower insurance reviews on behalf of financial institutions. The company has been in business for over 20 years. AMF Credit Corp. offers Commercial premium finance solutions for insureds across Canada. The company has been in business for 15 years.

In his spare time, Mr. Fredericks has spent 25 years teaching courses and marking final examination papers for the Insurance Institute of Canada.

Mr. Martin Guest was appointed to the Tribunal in December 2021. Previously, he served as General Counsel Canada for Manulife, with responsibility for all legal and compliance activities for its Canadian Division, including banking, group benefits, insurance, investments, and pensions. Prior to joining Manulife, Martin was a partner at Torys LLP. Prior to that, he spent 13 years at Fidelity Investments Canada. He began his career at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Trinity College (BA, 1984) and the Faculty of Law (LL.B., 1987); he is also qualified as a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA, 1996) and holds the ICD.D designation from the Institute of Corporate Directors (2018).

Ms. Caroline (Cally) Hunt resides in Toronto and is Head, Finance Technology Transformation, Bank of Montreal. She is responsible for modernizing process and technology to support the role of Finance as a strategic partner in driving business performance. She is a member of the Chief Financial Officer’s Senior Executive Team, and the Bank’s Leadership Council on Inclusion and Diversity. Ms Hunt has been at the Bank of Montreal since 1996, in increasingly more senior roles in accounting and finance.

Ms. Hunt received her LLB from the University of Western Ontario in 1980 and her Chartered Accountant designation in 1984. She was made a Fellow of the Ontario CPA Institute in 2013.

Mr. Christopher Portner was appointed a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on August 17, 2017. He recently completed a six-year term as a Commissioner of the Ontario Securities Commission and, for the last two years of his term, was also the Lead Director of the Commission’s Board of Directors. Prior to joining the Commission, Mr. Portner was a senior partner of Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP with extensive experience leading major transactions and providing governance and strategic advice to corporations in banking and financial services, pension and private equity investments and in the electricity, nuclear energy and major corporate real estate sectors. He also served as one of the Managing Partners of his firm and as a director of a number of public, private and not-for-profit corporations.

Mr. Nicholas Savona is Chief Compliance Officer at Independent Trading Group where he is directly responsible for regulatory oversight of capital markets and trading compliance. His career in capital markets spans over two decades in senior leadership roles in sales and trading at various firms, from large-scale and boutique broker dealers, to alternative trading systems with a global reach. In addition to his role at ITG, Nick is an adjunct professor at Seneca College’s school of accounting and financial services as well as an interim board member of the Health and Supportive Care Providers Oversight Authority.

In 2020, Nick was appointed by the Minister of Finance, as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal of Ontario, which adjudicates cases across financial services sectors. He also serves as a member of IIROC’s Ontario District Council and is a past member of the hearing panel from 2010-2019. Nick has been an active contributor to policy issues on various industry committees, including the OSC’s Market Structure Advisory committee, IIAC’s Independent Dealer’s Committee, past Vice-Chairman of the Canadian Security Traders’ Association (CSTA) and a Governor of the Security Traders’ Association (STA). Nick has been a guest contributor to the Financial Post, Traders Magazine and Markets Media on issues regarding securities regulation and market structure.

Nick holds an LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School with a speciality in Securities Law.

Mr. Faisal Siddiqi is a Managing Director, Actuarial with the University Pension Plan (Ontario). Prior to that he was employed with several major actuarial consulting firms and has been consulting on pension matters for over 30 years. In his role at UPP, Faisal manages all actuarial matters and supports the plan’s risk management and investment functions. Faisal graduated with distinction from the University of Waterloo with a Bachelor of Mathematics degree in Actuarial Science with a minor in Statistics. He is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and Canadian Institute of Actuaries and is a frequent speaker at many pension and actuarial meetings. He has participated in many Society of Actuaries and Canadian Institute of Actuaries professional exam and pension industry committees.

Mr. Ed Skwarek was appointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on March 18, 2020. Ed is currently Vice President of Legal and Regulatory matters at The Financial Advisors Association of Canada. In this capacity he oversees all internal legal matters, in addition to working with regulators in the financial services sector and governments in reviewing, assessing, and commenting on legal and regulatory reforms impacting financial services, insurance, and capital markets. He also oversaw the Public Relations, Marketing, and Communications and undertook to rebuild these teams.

Ed writes extensively on issues of reform within the broader financial services sector. He has worked for a major Bay Street law firm, securities regulators, product developers and distributors. Ed holds a B.A. from York University, an LL.B. from the University of Windsor, and has two specialists LL.M. from the London School of Economics in Corporate and Securities Law, and International Business Law.

Ms. Jill M. Wagman is currently Managing Principal of Eckler Ltd. and Chair of Eckler’s Board of Directors. She is a qualified actuary (FSA, FCIA) with 30 years of pension consulting experience and has her ICD.D designation.

Jill was appointed as a member of the Financial Services Tribunal (FST) of Ontario December 17, 2013. From 2009-2016 she served as a member of the Actuarial Standards Oversight Council (ASOC), acting as Vice-Chair from 2015-2016. Jill also served on the pension committee of the board of Queen’s University from 2013-2016.

Jill has served as a member of several other industry and professional committees including chairing the Task Force on International Pension and Employee Benefit Standards and acting as the CIA representative to the International Actuarial Association’s Pension and Employee Benefits Committee. She has also served as a member of the Canadian Accounting Standards Board’s Employee Benefits Advisory Group, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Employee Future Benefits Implementation Guide Working Group, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) Committee on Relations with Other Professions, the Committee on the Actuarial Valuation of Post-Employment Benefit Plans and has chaired the Workers’ Compensation Committee. Jill graduated with distinction from the University of Waterloo with an Honours Bachelor of Mathematics in 1990, and from the ICD-Rotman Directors Education Program in March 2017.

Ms. Ruth Wahl was appointed a member of the Financial Services Tribunal on December 2, 2021. She is a senior partner practising in the Business Law Group of Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP. She has an LL.B. and an LL.M. (Banking and Financial Institutions) from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. As Chair of the firm’s national Research Team, she provides opinions, analysis and advice on a broad range of legal and compliance issues. She has chaired and served on the boards of non-profit corporations and taught advanced legal analysis to upper-year law students and Bar Admission candidates. Ruth has written on a wide range of topics, most recently authoring the “Canada” chapter of Set-off Law and Practice, An International Handbook (Oxford University Press), COVID-19: Legal considerations for Canadian boards (NRFC Thought Leadership Publications) and, as co-contributor with Maurice Coombs, updating the Business Corporations (2022 Re-issue) chapter for Halsbury’s Laws of Canada.

Mr. Allan Shapira was appointed a member of the Financial Services Tribunal in March 2023. He is a Senior Partner in Aon’s Wealth Solutions business in Canada. Over his 45-year career with Aon (formerly Hewitt), he has served as the actuary to a broad range of pension plans in both the private and public sectors, and consulted on the design, funding and administration of these programs.

Allan has served as the Chair of the Actuarial Advisory Committee to the then Financial Services Commission of Ontario. He also served as a member of the Ontario Minister of Finance's Advisory Council on Pensions and Retirement Income and the Ministry of Finance’s Stakeholder Reference Group established in connection with Ontario’s review of the solvency funding framework for defined benefit plans. He is a frequent speaker on pension-related topics.Allan is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and a graduate of the University of Manitoba with a B.Sc. (Hons) in actuarial mathematics.

Ms. Jane Waechter has over 25 years of litigation and financial services industry experience. She led litigation teams at two banks: as Head of Canadian Litigation at RBC, and as Chair of the Litigation Practice Group and Global Head of Capital Markets Litigation at BMO. Ms. Waechter was a member of the enforcement litigation team at the Ontario Securities Commission, where she was lead counsel in complex precedent-setting litigation. She was also an equity partner in the advocacy group at Gowlings, and began her career at Price Waterhouse. She has argued cases before tribunals and at all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. Ms. Waechter is a hearing committee member at the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. She is a CPA, CA, with an ICD.D designation.

The Financial Services Tribunal meets quarterly.